


A Poet Under Pressure

by BenevolentErrancy



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: A Poet Under Pressure, Angst, Branding, Broken Bones, Capture, Fever, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Jaskier | Dandelion Whump, M/M, Seriously Fuck Novigrad, Torture, Vomit, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-21
Updated: 2020-04-24
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:06:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,863
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23772790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BenevolentErrancy/pseuds/BenevolentErrancy
Summary: Ciri managed to escape capture and, truly, Dandelion is nothing but relieved. He couldn't have lived with himself if something had happened to her.He, however, was not so lucky. And as he's dragged into the cold, stone dungeons of Temple Isle to face the cruel Guard commander, Dandelion realizes with a sinking fear that he might not have to live with anything for much longer. Not while at the hands of religious zealots when nobody knows where he is or that he's even in trouble.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia & Jaskier | Dandelion, Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Comments: 55
Kudos: 472





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for a kinkmeme prompt because I felt the exact same way after playing this quest in the game.  
> https://witcherkinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/429.html?thread=351661

“Charming arrangements, I can see the work that’s been put in. I’ve been thinking for some time of redecorating my own place of business, but it’s devilishly difficult to land on an aesthetic, don’t you find? You’ll have to give me the name of your man.”

Dandelion was babbling and he knew it. Knew it by the adrenaline shooting so hard and fast through his veins that he felt jittery and queasy, knew it by the way his voice pitched several octaves higher than the laissez-faire drawl he was aiming for.

Not that it was surprising. He’d been flying high on fear for what felt like days as it was, and it was all that was keeping him even half-sensible now. Sneaking about Temple Isle with Ciri in an effort to betray one of Novigrad’s crime lords would do that to you. He had been afraid of being caught by Whoreson Junior's men, had been afraid of what was being done to Dudu while they dawdled outside, and had been overwhelmingly afraid of what might happen to Ciri, for no matter how grown and strong she was now he couldn’t help but see her as the child that had followed Geralt about like a duckling. He wouldn’t be able to live with himself if something happened to her.

In many ways, Dandelion could count himself fortunate for nothing had happened to Ciri. She had disappeared in a flash of light, and was hopefully somewhere safe. Hopefully she had found Geralt and Yennefer. He was quite genuinely relieved.

In other ways though, the fear had only mounted because as soon as she was gone, he had been overrun. Dandelion was no fighter and never had been. He didn’t try to resist. It wouldn’t have helped. And now he was one of the many lucky souls that got to experience the hospitality of the Church of the Eternal Flame.

“You are the worst sort of cretin,” said a cold, dispassionate voice. “A craven, and one that spews words like diarrhea to try to disguise the fact. Pathetic.”

“Ha! Good sir, if you’re trying to insult me, you’ll have to do better than that. My dearest friends have told me worse—  _ ah! _ ”

A hand had cracked against the side of Dandelion’s face, whipping his head about and making stars dance. He wheezed and shook. There was nothing else for him to do, not bound, half-naked, in a solid wooden chair as he was.

The same gloved hand that had struck him was now digging into his cheek, fingers gouging into the reddening bruise that was already beginning to form as they forced Dandelion to look up and meet the ice-chip blue eyes of Caleb Menge, Commander of the Temple Guard.

“Do not mistake me, poetaster,” he said coolly. “I am not like you. I do not need to rely on words to make my point, or to spread the righteousness of the holy Flame. Fire burns out sin with nary a sound. Your flaunting is no different than a player or a whore. Meaningless noise to mask filth and degeneration.”

Dandelion couldn’t help it. He knew, in abstract ways, the direction his life was currently hurtling towards and he was also achingly aware that it probably would not continue in that direction for terribly long. If these were his last instances to impact the world, he wanted to do more than whimper and cringe like a dog. So he spoke like a cur instead. “Funny then how people are always so much happier after visiting a play or a whore or a minstrel, while I suspect you don’t get many repeat visitors down in this pit.”

Braced for another blow, Dandelion’s muscles quivered even after realizing it wasn’t going to come. Instead Menge just stroked his thumb thoughtfully over Dandelion’s cheek. It wasn’t even enough to hurt, not really, beyond being a persistent reminder of the bruising. It wasn’t pain, it was a promise. It let Dandelion’s imagination hurt him plenty in the interim as he envisioned what may be coming.

There were times a vivid imagination was not a man’s friend at all.

“You are correct,” Menge said eventually. “We don’t have many repeat visitors. We ensure it.” 

He stepped away from Dandelion then, and Dandelion couldn’t help but shiver at the cold, stony dampness that replaced his presence. Menge walked towards the prison door, pausing only to nod at the guard that had been standing like a leering gargoyle by the wall. “Ensure our dear ‘visitor’ is sufficiently entertained. You heard of his love for plays and minstrels and… whores. We would not wish for him to grow bored as we await the wheels of bureaucracy.” He flashed Dandelion a smile that was all teeth. “We are so lucky to have amongst us a performer, and I am certain we can find an appropriately splendid way for the gentleman to give his final performance. I expect him to be presentable for the event. The rest, I leave to your… discretion.”

The man-who-may-as-well-be-a-gargoyle grunted in acknowledgement, and with that Menge had swept out of the room, letting the door slam behind him with finality.

Dandelion could do nothing but sit and wait.

Not, mind, that it was a long wait. Shortly after the door had shut and Dandelion’s eyes had adjusted to the flickering light that came from the brazier in the far corner, the guard stalked over to him. He had a mean, sneering face, with none of Menge’s icy distance. This wasn’t just business for this man, it was pleasure.

“The poet Dandelion,” sneered the guard. “I’ve heard of you.”

“I’m amazed,” said Dandelion. “I knew my fame was renowned, but not even I would dream that it would extend to the gutter lice.”

He was rewarded for his lip with a fist to his stomach that would have doubled him over were he not tied to the chair. Still, as Dandelion gasped and tried to coil in on myself, the man’s grimy hand grabbed a fistful of Dandelion’s hair and jerked his head back again so hard it slammed against the wooden chair back.

Dandelion was blinking open-mouthed, trying to get his bearings back, while the man continued to talk. “They say yer a whore who beds any wench that bats an eye. Says you were a witcher’s bitch for years, sucking his cock with yer songs.”

Cursing himself even as he said it, Dandelion croaked, “You’d be shocked by how hard it is to suck cock and sing at the same time. I’ve tried, it’s—”

A knife was slammed into the chair back, directly next to his head.

No, not just next to, now that his heart was no longer pounding like a drum in his head Dandelion realized that the stinging heat he felt meant it had nicked a notch in his ear.

The man spat, directly on Dandelion’s bare chest. “You should be lit up on a pyre immediately, yer type’s a pox on us all.” Dandelion didn’t have time to feel disgusted — or even offended, because he’d been told as much to his face often enough — because the knife was being pulled free with a jerk that made his ear throb and was then tossed idly in the man’s meaty paw. Dandelion watched it flip through the air with dry-mouthed anxiety. “Could castrate you right now,” he mused. “Geld you like a rutting bull. What say you to that, fancy tongue?”

Trying desperately to keep his head against the terror, Dandelion said, “I say that your boss doesn’t seem the sort to be thrilled if you bleed me out my first night here.” He swallowed thickly. “But go ahead, I’m sure Commander Menge’s the forgiving sort.”

The man snarled, face so near Dandelion’s that he could smell the man’s rancid teeth, before he furiously jammed the knife downwards.

Dandelion squeaked. The knife was left shuddering in the wooden seat of the chair, a thumb’s width away from Dandelion’s crotch. Close enough that if Dandelion wasn’t careful about how he sat he could feel the warning pressure of its edge. He was shaking and sweating so hard he was amazed he hadn’t passed out from sheer fright. For a threat often leveled against him, this was the closest he’d come to living it.

“Before this is done I’ll make you wish I’d just killed you now,” the guard promised darkly, spitting one last time, this time hitting Dandelion square on the cheek. “See if I don’t.”

And with that the man marched out of the room, leaving Dandelion truly alone with nothing to do but feel the spittle drying on his skin and try not to press against the knife.

-

If Geralt were here, he would be out of this already. There was a knife right there, quite literally in touching distance. But no matter how hard Dandelion tugged at his wrists or ankles he couldn’t find any give in the hemp ropes that bound him. Instead he just felt the fibres dig deeper and deeper into his skin, rubbing it raw and ragged.

“I’m sure you’d have a laugh if you could see me,” he said to the empty, stale air. It wasn’t like it was much worse of a conversational partner that Geralt was when he wasn’t in the mood to talk. “‘What a mess that Dandelion has gotten himself into this time.’ Blast. I’m sure you could just flex and the ropes would fall asunder, quite ashamed of having tried to hold you. Well, you wait, see if I don’t get myself out of this and have a truly epic tale to tell, next time you come knocking on my door. I’ll show up your meagre griffin tales, what with my stories of saving your daughter and fighting back Redanian zealots, see if I don’t.”

-

Dandelion would not live up to his word.

Unfortunately, the guard would.

-

Dandelion was curled in a corner of the cold, stone room, wheezing softly to himself in the silence. The wheeze was a constant companion now, as if the damp had managed to settle into his lungs. Or maybe it was from being hung up like a piece of meat. That was a favourite of that miserably gargoyle and his chums. The bindings on his wrists would be slung across a hook that hung from the ceiling and he’d be winched higher and higher, until his toes left the ground and his full weight dragged on his arms.

The first time it had been done to him, he had wailed and begged. He could still remember, it must be a decade ago now, being taken by Rience in a pigsty, strung up with a bucket of lime tied to his ankles. The threat, the knowledge, that if he was pulled up, forced to suspend the heavy bucket from his joints, that his wrists — and consequently his hands — would surely be destroyed. Even without the bucket, the remembered weight dragged at him everytime he was lifted and he begged to be let down. Even without the bucket, he wasn’t convinced his own weight wouldn’t be enough to destroy his joints. It certainly made his shoulders ache, and the longer he was held up, body contorted, diaphragm fighting against the position, the harder and harder it was to breathe. He would be left there for some time, as it gave his punishers plenty of surface area to work with.

He didn’t know how a person survived something like this. Even now, days into his imprisonment, he didn’t know how he continued to live minute to minute. It felt as if a body must surely just give in to this sort of torment, and yet it continued to persist. Punches, at least, he understood. When he had simply been bound to the chair and beaten bloody, it had hurt, by the devils it had hurt, but he had understood the dull, blunt, blossoming pain. He had been in bar fights, had started enough of them, had been cornered by angry lovers and father and brothers, had travelled with Geralt and met all manner of thugs for long enough that he had experienced a beating from time to time. Even when his eye was blackened, when his face was punched hard enough that his teeth cut the inside of his cheek, when his stomach was hit so hard he had gagged and spat bile, at least this was something he had understood.

The first time he had been strung up they had left him there, for a while. Listening and laughing at his cries and pleading and frenzy and fear. Once they had tired of it, then they had taken out a whip.

Never in his life had Dandelion been whipped. Years back, he remembered discussing childhood with Geralt. In bits and pieces only, because Geralt rarely talked about growing up in Kaer Morhen and because Dandelion didn’t like to dwell on his days as Julian, but Geralt had gotten himself white gull, a witcher brew that got him drunk like nothing Dandelion had ever seen. The miser wouldn’t even share it, though he’d insisted it was because it was as likely to kill Dandelion as get him drunk. But they’d both been tipsy enough to laugh about their misbegotten youth. Geralt recounted some of the mischief he and his mate Eskel would get up to, and how after one memorable time he and Eskel had been taken into the yard and given five cracks of the whip each in punishment and how they had moaned about the keep like martyrs until Vesemir had promised them more cracks just to give them something proper to cry ago if they didn’t knock it off. Dandelion had laughed at the time, having no real frame of reference for what Geralt was talking about. In his mind it equated somewhat to the punishments he’d been given as a child himself on occasion, most often with a metre stick or a belt by his tutors, generally across his knuckles. He knew now how wrong he was, and in some frenzied, disconnected portion of his mind, he wanted to find Geralt and apologize for laughing so lightheartedly with him at the time.

The anticipation was half of the torture. Strung up as he was, just fighting to breath and find some way, any way, to relieve the drag on his shoulders, he could do nothing but watch as the guards selected a whip and then carried it over to the bucket of water that was left in the corner so that Dandelion wouldn’t die of dehydration before they could kill him properly. The braided leather would be dipped and then, almost ritualistically, the man would crack the whip, savouring the sound, as if ensuring it was ready. And then Dandelion could do nothing but tense and wait as the man strolled behind him. Every single audible crack of the whip was nearly as bad as the lashes themselves. Almost. Except it took no time at all for the man to carve through Dandelion skin like butter, for blood to flow, coating his back and his smallclothes before dripping to the ground.

Whish, crack, burning pain, and sobbing. It was damnably repetitive, but the torturer didn’t seem to care. Seemed to enjoy it, in fact, which made one of them. The only thing that broke the monotony came from how the force of the blows would cause Dandelion to rock in the air, his body twisting and flailing like a hooked fish. This meant the man had to move to keep in line with Dandelion’s back. It also meant there was no telling when a lash would curl around his side to cut into his ribs or his belly or his chest instead. The sheer shock of it was usually enough to redouble Dandelion’s wheezing cries. Finally though, whether he thought Dandelion had had as much as he could take or because he’d grown bored, the man would leave and allow Dandelion to simply hang, sobbing and shaking as he tried to pull the remains of himself back together, with nothing to distract himself from the pain but the equally repetitive dripping of the blood running down his toes and onto the floor.

Eventually, at some point, Dandelion would be released from the hook and dumped onto the floor. He would be left in a pathetic pile of bloodied flesh, and the guards would simply ignore him from there, going to douse the brazier and, when he was lucky, leaving some manner of food on the ground for him. Sometimes Dandelion would dredge up the effort to eat whatever gruel was left him or drink desperately from the leathery-tanged water, face down like a dog. Other times he would just crawl into a corner, as if being cradled by stone walls could protect him.

Sometimes he just lay beneath the hook in a daze until he passed out.

-

“Wake him.”

Dandelion came awake with a gasping splutter as frigid water sluiced over him. Before he could react, a boot came down on his neck, the weight keeping him pinned to the ground, half curled on his side as the heel crushed against his larynx. That wretched wheeze was back, fast and hissing in his fear and as he tried to suck in air around pressure.

“Good morning, Master Dandelion,” said Menge mildly.

As much as he wished to respond with something pithy and sharp, Dandelion’s mind still felt scrambled and all he could think to say was “Fuck your mother,” which was neither a mark of his poetic genuis nor something that made the faintest impression on the Temple Guard commander.

“The details are all arranged,” Menge told him. “I thought you would like to know the program for your final performance. Oxenfurt is a den of blasphemers and sin. Indulgences and sympathies for heretical gods, a safe haven for monsters and witches, and one that prides itself in its baseness. Unsurprising, then, that it is a place you frequently call your home. You will be taken there and put upon the breaking wheel, so that the crowd may hear you sing while your limbs are pulverized. After that you will be flayed. If you’re still alive at that point, we shall allow the fires to eat away your sin. Perhaps you may find mercy, then, in the afterlife. Well, Master Bard, what say you to that?”

Nothing. Dandelion had nothing to say to that. He barely knew how to comprehend it. On an intellectual level, he knew of all these things. He had seen men flayed, he had seen them broken on the wheel, and since being in Novigrad he had certainly seen, heard, and smelt men thrust into pyres. And yet it was almost impossible to envision what that meant for himself.

“Nothing? No good, Dandelion,” tutted Menge. “We’re putting on a show, you must understand this. The academic youth of that town need an example made, and who better than one they look up to so ardently. Men, ensure our visitor understands that his voice will be expected of him, once I give the word to progress to Oxenfurt. A good musician must run through scales and drills, is that not so? See it is done. Good day.”

And once again he was gone. Once again, there was only Dandelion, with his good friend the gargoyle and several other large guards who seemed much the same build and ilk as the former.

“I’m going to die in either case,” said Dandelion hoarsely. “Surely you can allow me rest until then.”

The gargoyle cracked a horrid, black-toothed smile. “You heard the Commander, bard. You’ve lessons to learn ‘tween now and then.”

“I’ve always been a horrid student,” warned Dandelion, but it came out more tired than defiant.

The boot was lifted from his neck.

In the days since he was brought in here, Dandelion had neither had much in the way of opportunity or drive to fight. He’d yelled, cussed, cried, and begged. He’d tucked himself away in the corner and shook and writhed, but hadn’t fought. There wasn’t much point. More often than not, he was tied down, and was in so much pain already, achingly aware of the fact that the large, troll-like men around him were much more capable of delivering him further pain than he was capable of doing to them. He wasn’t Geralt, what would he do? Leap up and disarm them with a pirouette and then grab some weapon to fight his way past the hoards and off of Temple Isle? If he made it past his knees he would be lucky. If they let him keep his knees after he tried such a thing he’d be even luckier. Some part of his brain, the scared, pragmatic part, had understood it was better to try to ride the course, to hope that there was some way out that would present itself if only he hung on and waited.

Nothing had come though, and now, he was realizing, truly nothing would.

His death was set. A horrible death at that.

He had, almost literally, nothing to lose. No one who cared about him knew he was here. It had been an age since he’d last seen Geralt. Zoltan had no idea of schemes. Dudu had fled once Ciri had freed him, and as for Ciri… she hadn’t seen him captured. She was gone. And despite everything, Dandelion still fervently hoped that wherever that was, it was safe and far away from the Hunt and the witch hunters and ploughing Temple Isle.

No one was coming to save him, no opportunity was going to present itself. He could either roll over or at least try.

The boot lifted from his neck. Dandelion jerked up so fast the blood rushed dizzily to his brain but his skull made hard contact with the groin positioned just above him.

The guard howled and fell back, clutching at himself, and Dandelion scurried to his feet and  _ ran _ . Shouts followed him but no one was able to grab him. He sprinted, feeling almost giddy, unable to believe he was  _ running _ , even if it made his back bleed and his joints scream in protest. He was running and felt a shot of adrenaline, of hope, of freedom, like he hadn’t in days — weeks? Who knew how long. He threw himself at the door to the cell, hardly daring to breath, but at the lightest touch it opened. Dandelion felt tears welling up in his eyes as he breathed air that wasn’t the cell’s rank musk. The narrow, stone hall it opened to wasn’t much better but at least it gave him a clear goal. It was a short sprint to three steps, and then the next door beyond that. Practically flying, his bare feet slapping stone, Dandelion bolted down the hall, lept up the steps, and flung himself at the door.

It was locked.

Dandelion just stood and stared at it. There was nothing he could do next. He couldn’t shoulder open an oak-and-iron-enforced door like Geralt. Couldn’t pass through it like Ciri. Couldn’t even turn himself into something small enough to squeeze under it, like Dudu.

He could hear the slow, heavy steps of the guards behind them, their leering, grunting laughs. It was clear why he hadn’t been caught: they knew there was no point in chasing him. Like a pig in a sty, he had nowhere to go.

He let his head drop against the wood and simple let the tears run down his cheeks as he felt that brief, heady taste of freedom slip from his grasp.

The first guard that reached him grabbed his shoulder and flung him back so hard that Dandelion briefly soared.

Then he hit the ground with a crack. Shoulder first, with a lancing pain so fierce it made Dandelion wail. Momentum carried him, and next his head slammed against the ground, and for a moment time slipped away. It wasn’t unconsciousness exactly, but everything swam and warped and stopped making sense. There were noises, yelling, boots around him. One of the boots was raised, he could see it because he was curled in on himself, one of the boots was raised, and then it was brought down. It slammed against his bare ankle, his bare ankle that cracked like the whip, lancing pain so fierce that this time Dandelion threw up what little he had in his stomach. The pain was unimaginable.

“Little wise-arse, thinks he some sort of big hero,” growled a voice above him, which Dandelion felt he wasn’t so much hearing as watching dance through his consciousness. “We’ve locked up sorcerers an’ werewolves an’ warriors in here, and they all died, you think you’ll be the one to get out? What a lark.”

Something hit his stomach so hard Dandelion was forced to curl tighter and gag again but there was nothing left to come up. Hardly matter, because he felt his hair slip through the mess he had already made, the smell was putrid and somehow, through all of this, humiliation managed to bubble up on the waves and crests of the pain. A hand then grabbed his hair by the roots and began to drag him back towards the cell. Keening, Dandelion scrambled, trying to get enough purchase to relieve the pressure on his head, but his left shoulder was a ball of agony and he could barely move that arm, and then his ankle… he could feel it grating, grinding, burning anew each time it scraped against the ground.

This was death. It should be death. He should be dying, it felt like he was dying, Melitele help him he just wanted to die so everything stopped hurting for a blessèd moment.

But then he was in the room again, he wasn’t entirely sure how. He was being dragged back towards the centre and he was vaguely aware that he was begging, high and desperate,  _ please please please not that please no I can’t please _ frantic at the thought of being put back up on the hook with his shoulder like it was  _ oh Melitele help me my hands please I have to be able to play no no no _ but they weren’t lowering the hook, instead they were pulling over that big wooden chair, tipping it over so that the edge of its seat and its backboard rested on the ground rather than the legs, creating a lopsided pyramid that thrust up into the air. Voices were rumbling around him still, laughing, jeering, but Dandelion’s hearing felt like it was trapped in the echo chamber that was his head, stuck swimming in athick, twisting molasses of agony and confusion.

He was flung over the chair and tied down, so that his wrists were attached to the chair legs that stuck up in the air and his ankles to the knobs of the backboard. As the twine tightened around the swollen lump that his right ankle was quickly becoming Dandelion screamed until he nearly choked, unable to get enough air into his lungs. It forced his poor, bruised stomach to bend harshly over the jutting angle it formed.

“Comfy?” barked a voice that barely managed to cut through the sludge of Dandelion’s mind, and it was probably only because it was punctuated by a hand slapping the whip marks on his back. He cried wordlessly in response. The voice, it was the gargoyle, continued, “Good, we’ve got a treat for you. To remind you of your fucking place, whoreson.”

Dandelion’s head darted, straining to see and understand what was going on, but he couldn’t. The guards that weren’t next to him were standing next to the brazier, holding something. Were they going to douse the light? Plunge him into darkness again? He was sick of the darkness, he longed for sun, real sun, not the firelight. Not the damned Eternal Flame.

Even as they walked back towards him, he couldn’t immediately understand what he was seeing. It was like they were holding a fire poker for some reason, but there was no hearth to tend.

“ _ No, _ ” he breathed, once, sharply, as the scene resolved itself in his mind. He didn’t get more out, because by then the brand was brought down on his back and everything in the entire world narrowed to that single point.

His wail was high and keening until his voice broke under the strain and it became fractured and raw, punctuated by the sizzle and hiss and pop of melting, burning flesh that blackened and stuck to the edges of the metal.

This had to be death, surely, surely, surely there could not be after, not from something like this.

-


	2. Chapter 2

The after came. It didn’t get better. The burn never stopped hurting, every movement seemed to set it afire once more, but as time progressed he could feel the way blood and pus dried against it, only to be ripped open once more with each movement. It itched. It burned. It wept. So did Dandelion, pitifully.

Dandelion didn’t move when the door opened, just squeezed his eyes shut and kept his knees hugged to his chest. To keep warm. To make himself the smallest possible target.

You would think, after having raw fire shoved to your skin, you wouldn’t have a problem with warmth ever again. It was baffling how chilled he got. To be sure, the brand was a brutal, throbbing agony, a heat that seemed to radiate from his shoulder blade and consume the rest of him like it intended to burn him from the inside out. But along with that burning fever came also waves of deep chills, like the dungeon air was frosting over his sweaty skin. _Infection_ , a tiny, fearful part of his mind whispered. He remembered that that was always the thing Geralt was most concerned about after coming back from a hunt that had left him injured. The witcher potions would stop the blood loss and his mutations would close the wounds, but he would always strip and douse the wound in some elixir or another that would burn away any possibility of disease. He was fastidious about keeping wounds, his and those of his friends, clean. Infection was a killer that slipped into small scratches and ate you away from the inside out. And, well, Dandelion felt like nothing but open wounds at this point.

Of course, it probably didn’t matter at this point, not really.

He was going to die regardless.

And it may very well be a good thing if fever consumed him first, if he wasn’t fully coherent for it.

There was a soft thump, and then the sound of boots leaving and the door closing once more. They didn’t even bother to torture him now. Must know that every breath he forced himself to take was doing their job for them. Dandelion laboriously looked up. Bread. Seeing it made him vaguely aware of the hollow ache in his stomach, of the knowledge that the last thing he’d eaten he’d also thrown up all over himself, but he couldn’t bring himself to move to get it. He was too tired. Too sore.

It’s not like it mattered.

-

Dandelion drifted.

Or his mind did, letting strange thoughts and memories swim past his closed eyes, unbidden. He imagined snatches of songs, though he couldn’t recall whether they were ones he remembered or ones he’d yet to write. Saw himself performing in public squares, smelt the foods being fried in the outdoor air that made his empty stomach cramp, hearing the voices of an admiring crowd. He saw his limbs being pulverized by a hammer as he spun on a breaking wheel, hearing the jeers of a vicious crowd. Saw himself sitting with Zoltan and Priscilla at the Rosemary and Thyme. Saw himself being bound with Geralt at the feet of the elves at the Edge of the World.

“Dandelion,” said Geralt. He had the blood of elves dripping down his brow, painting his face red, from when he’d slammed his face into Toruviel, breaking her nose in retribution for her breaking Dandelion’s lute.

“What?” said Dandelion, disoriented. He didn’t remember returning to the Valley.

“I said you should wake up and do something, Dandelion,” said Geralt. Not angry or accusatory, even though Dandelion had gotten them locked into this dungeon, sentenced to die at the hands of Caleb Menge. Just making a reasonable suggestion, patiently waiting for Dandelion to follow through.

No, wait, they were with the elves in the Valley, not in a dungeon. Was that the elf’s blood on Geralt’s face, or was it the witcher’s own from when the elves had beat him bloody? He and Geralt had both been aware they were going to die then too, Geralt had accepted it, challenged them for it, but they hadn’t, they had survived.

Dandelion blinked, the memory fracturing. Geralt was gone, and he was no longer in the Valley sun but rather in a pitch black prison far beneath the ground. He was shivering again, for a moment sure that he was knee deep in snow again, too late at getting to a town to winter in before the season changed. Then he saw the inside of the Rosemary and Thyme, its walls and floors shifting like sand as he envisioned its future as a cabaret. Then it wasn’t the Rosemary, but the Passiflora, after he and Geralt had first met Dudu and had gone whoring together.

“Is now really the time, Dandelion?” asked Geralt.

“There is always time for a beautiful woman, Geralt,” said Dandelion, though the words felt wrong. They were late for something, weren’t they? Not to see Dainty, surely, that whole affair had been resolved.

“Dandelion, you’re bleeding,” said Geralt, and they were no longer in the Passiflora but in walking through a forest, surrounded by much less pleasing flora. It was just after a hunt that Dandelion had mistakenly gotten a little too close to and his back throbbed from the clawing the creature had given him. “You need it treated.”

Not much he could do about that in a dungeon. Then he was in Yennefer’s rooms in Aedd Gynvael, getting day drunk on something fruity and bubbly, and laughing about something petty. Geralt wasn’t there, he was off killing something, most likely.

“You’re the one who’s going to be killed, Dandelion,” scolded Geralt, suddenly behind him in full armour. He looked as furious as Dandelion had ever seen him.

“Piss off, I’d rather drink,” Dandelion tried to explain, tried to make Geralt understand that he didn’t want to think about _that_ , would rather drink even with Yennefer than think about _that_ but he couldn’t get the words out. His voice was muffled and his jaw wasn’t working right, so Geralt simply stood and stared at him mutely as he briefly panicked, wondering if he was seeing Yennefer now to drink but because the djinn curse was still upon him. 

“You have to think about it,” snapped Geralt.

And as he blinked he realized the reason he couldn’t speak was actually because his face was pressed against hard stone and his tongue felt thick and swollen. The dungeon swam back into existence, Yennefer’s elegant room bleeding into nothing and all the hurts coming back at once to replace it.

He groaned. He wanted to close his eyes and disappear again, but he could practically feel Geralt standing over him, livid. So he dug the fingers of his good hand into the stone and tried to hold on. To think.

They would be taking him to Oxenfurt. He would die in Oxenfurt. His body would not be what freed him. He wasn’t strong enough for that, not before when he had been at his healthiest and certain not now, half-starved and bloodied. He wasn’t Geralt.

“I wouldn’t try to kill a fucking chort with my bare hands, Dandelion,” said Geralt. “What _tools_ do you have?”

Tools, tools, tools. Nothing. A wooden chair, so big and heavy he probably couldn’t even lift it in this state. An unlit brazier, good for nothing but being full of coals or full of fire, depending. His back was still learning the lesson that fire was a much more fearsome thing in his captor’s hands than his. His smallclothes, filthy and good for nothing but offending the senses.

“Don’t be _dull_ , Dandelion,” scolded the witcher.

Geralt’s best tool was his body, his strength, his skill. But Dandelion? Yes, yes, his mind, he still had that.

“What are you good at Dandelion?” demanded the witcher. “You can run circles around me.”

Words. Telling people stories. People. He was good with people, in a way Geralt’s awkwardness couldn’t compare. He understood them. Could play their emotions like his lute, wrap them into his songs, rile them or soothe them or fleece them for all they were worth at cards. He could certainly run circles around Geralt at that. For a man with such a poker-face at the best of times, he was a joke at cards. Not that his captors had exactly supplied him with a deck, so unless the Geralt-of-his-mind expected him to play the Reaper after he was burnt alive in Oxenfurt it seemed a useless skill, at the moment.

All his words had gotten him so far was a fiercer beating.

Dandelion groaned into the pitch blackness. He closed his eyes and let his mind drift back to cards. By smelling the smoky air left by the doused brazier he could almost imagine he was near some inn’s hearth, sitting at a table with his chums, playing cards as they waited out the night outside. Playing until daybreak and a better morning.

At some indeterminate point the door opened again. Dandelion made no effort to look up, not until he heard the soft, sneering huff of air, familiar enough that it sent jolts down his spine.

Menge.

Briefly he considered whether ignoring Menge completely would be satisfying, to deny this self-important, self-righteous whoreson the attention he thought he deserved. Ultimately though Dandelion couldn’t stand not knowing, so he tilted his head up the best he could and stared blearily at the man.

Menge stood before him, as towering and intimidating as ever, beard neatly trimmed and gaze icy as he stared down his nose at Dandelion. It was only one, cold, blue eye this time though. As long as Dandelion had known of the Temple Guard commander, the man had borne a forked scar down the left side of his face. Now though another, fresh, angry scar had been added, one that started towards the centre of his forehead and cut harshly down his right cheek. It looked like someone had gored his eye out, for it was firmly shut.

 _Good_ , thought Dandelion viciously. He would applaud the person, were it not also more than likely than anyone who dared lay such a blow to the Temple Guard commander was also now dead.

There was a guard speaking to Menge. “My lord, we were concerned,” the guard was saying. “We hadn’t seen you, and what with the fire at the Outpost, people were beginning to think—”

“To think what? That anyone who dared attack the Eternal Flame in its own home would be allowed to succeed? No, the perpetrator is dead and I am not. That is all there is to it. If I hear such unfounded rumours spread I will consider it blasphemy, is that understood?”

The guard leapt back to attention, mouth clamped firmly shut.

“Good.” Then he glanced back at Dandelion, though it seemed to pain him to address the pile of filth curled up on his prison floor. “It seems we have succeeded in humbling the great troubadour somewhat during his stay,” said Menge. “It’s good to see sense can be gained through penance. Your execution date is set.” Turning to the guard he said, “See that he is cleaned and dressed. A squad of soldiers leaves with him at first light tomorrow, and I expect him to be presentable when he arrives in Oxenfurt. We want him recognizable for his audience, after all.”

“Yes, sir,” said the guard.

Menge nodded. “Good. Master Poet, I will see you in Oxenfurt,” said Menge, and with that he strolled out of the room.

Once he was gone, the guard stepped out to the hall beyond the cell to bark for someone to bring a tub of water and the prisoner’s clothes.

Oddly enough, Dandelion felt very little at all in that moment. From the moment the words were out of Menge’s mouth, it was like a dark, heavy emptiness had descended upon him. Even when a large tub was hauled in and Dandelion was roughly stripped and shoved in, he didn’t have room to focus on much beyond the way his hurts awoke with fresh agonies when they were dumped in the cold water and scrubbed cruelly. By the time he was pulled out, he was shivering so violently he thought his bones would crumble, and the water was a murky brown. He didn’t itch quite so fiercely anymore and some of his whip markings were almost pleasantly numb even if they were bleeding freshly, but his burn drowned everything else out.

“Stop your whimpering,” snapped one of the guards, Dandelion’s old friend the gargoyle, cuffing the bard around the head. “Do we shave him?”

The last thing Dandelion wanted was these goons anywhere near his neck with a straight razor, but the others seemed to agree that if he was supposed to be recognizable a scraggly beard wasn’t going to cut it. No one who knew the dandy would ever believe him capable of such a slovenly appearance. So Dandelion was forced once more into the wood chair, though this time they didn’t need to tie him. After all, the threat of what would happen was pretty clear when you had a man scraping a razor blade along your cheeks.

He was then harried into the clothes he had originally been wearing when they’d captured him. Dandelion could hardly believe they still existed, it felt like they belonged to another world. He nearly blacked out when they forced his leggings back on him, his ankle grinding painfully, but by the time he had buttoned his doublet with shaky fingers and his bonnet had been jammed roughly onto his over-long hair, he felt almost human again, even if his back did cry out every time the fabric of his chemise caught against the wounds.

“Take him out to the wagon,” one barked. “They’re leaving at sun-up. No point coming back here to fetch him at the arse crack of dawn.”

-

The cart wasn’t so different from the cell. It was a solid metal structure that let in no more light than the cell did, and it provided no more comfort or warmth. The only difference was that he sat on hard metal instead of hard stone.

He half-heartedly gave the door a shove some time after he was put inside, but, unsurprisingly, it didn’t budge. He supposed the next time he saw the sun would be in Oxenfurt. He wondered if he would recognize any of the people in the crowd. If colleagues or friends or students or lovers would be there. He rested his uninjured — or at least less injured — shoulder against the side of the cart and let his eyes drift closed. 

He was fucking tired and it wasn’t like he had anything better to do than doze and wonder. He let his mind wander down the paths of the more dramatic ballads and epics. He imagined a scenario where he would be marched before the crowds by Redanian lackeys, where he saw a sea of familiar faces and heard their outrage. Horrified, they were, to see such a well-loved figure before them, sentenced to death on such unjust charges. He imagined the anger, the cries of women and the screams for clemency. He imagined them charging the stage, tearing down the wheel, pulling him to safety.

 _Ha_ , a pretty fantasy, but Dandelion was regrettably too familiar with all types of ballads to expect that that would be the one he would live. He was much more likely to wind up in the tragic, maudlin type, with his head undone upon a block. It would still, ideally, involve crying women, but would also most likely involve no riots and no rescue.

No one was going to charge a Redanian armed force, much less the feared Guards of the Eternal Flame, for Dandelion’s sake.

Unless.

Sighing, he let his warm cheek rest more fully against the cold metal of the cart. That, at least, was a small kindness. His skin felt hot and over-tight.

He imagined the scene again, tweaking it, so it was no longer a sea of past lovers staring up at him, but just one man among a faceless crowd. White hair, golden eyes, twin swords. Perhaps passing through Oxenfurt. Perhaps looking for Ciri, or even looking for him, seeking his companionship and aid. Or maybe Ciri had found him and warned him that she feared his good friend, his best friend in the whole world, the good old poet Dandelion was in danger. He imagined Geralt storming the stage, easily doing what Dandelion had previously imagined a mob doing, and whisking him to safety and comfort.

Dandelion let out a tired huff of a breath. A story-teller he may be, but telling himself these sorts of tales would only lead to heartbreak. He had no idea where Geralt was, nor did Geralt have any idea where he was, much less that he was in such peril. What’s more, Geralt had already shouldered the name of Butcher for a misunderstanding in a village square, and still suffered under that reputation even decades later. Even if, by some miracle, he was in Oxenfurt that day, and he just so happened to be present for a public execution — something he normally avoided — and he just so happened, impossibly, to spot Dandelion, would he truly charge against an entire armed force and a civilian crowd just to free him? Would he buy Dandelion’s life with so much blood?

It was a worthless question to ask, because there was no White Wolf in this ballad. Just a troubadour who had stuck his nose in one adventure too many.

Dandelion closed his eyes and willed sleep. What else was there to do?

When he did drift off, he intentionally shoved aside the hallucination that glowered at him, scolding him with a sharp, “Which of us writes the ballads, Dandelion? You choose the players and tale, so write, damn you.”

-

The rocking of the cart was worse than being stuck on a ship. In here he could do nothing but live with the swaying and listen to the creaking of metal and try to ignore the panicked imaginings of his own mind. It went on endlessly. Was Oxenfurt really so far? He didn’t know if he wished time would speed up or slow down. The sooner he got there the sooner he died. And yet this was a fresh misery all in itself, and the fact that he was still flushed and aching didn’t help, nor did the chills and shooting pains whenever he shifted wrong.

He tried singing a bit, but his throat was too dry and sore for it, and in any case it depressed him. Singing of nature or adventure made the cart seem even darker, songs of love made the loneliness around him even sharper, and his songs of the White Wolf — well, enough said on that. So mostly he sat in silence.

Until that silence was interrupted by something beyond the cart’s walls. There was a creaking, like a ship mast, followed by an earth-shaking crash and the screams of both men and horses. Then the cart lurched to a stop, tipping him over as he tried to scramble to his feet, as if he could figure out what was going on beyond the metal cell by standing.

His curiosity was answered, at least somewhat, when the door was flung open.

A man in Redanian livery reached in and grabbed him by the back of his doublet, and before he could make sense of what was happening, Dandelion was flung over a saddle in a way that made his ribs throb. He may have no idea what was going on, but he could hear the sounds of yelling and steel being drawn; he knew the sounds of battle well enough. He just barely caught the sight of dwarves further along, near a felled tree that was blocking their path, and who were definitely not a part of the Redanian forces. Someone was clearly attacking the convoy, and just maybe… _just maybe_ … 

He got as much breath as he could while his diaphragm was being compressed by a horse and yelled as loudly as all his years of musical training would allow. Nothing elegant, but there were things to be said for the classics. He cried for help as powerfully as he possibly could, before he was forced to trail off as the horse sped up a hill, bouncing him so fiercely Dandelion half thought he would fall off without even needing to try.

The soldier was running the horse hard, and managed to keep Dandelion wedged to the saddle firmly enough that he couldn’t twist himself off — not that he was sure he would want to either though, what sort of escape would that be? He’d fall off, break his other leg, and then be left to lie there while the man came back to collect him. He wasn’t strong enough to fight his way free, even here against a single man with no walls to hold him. In some ways, he was no better off than he was.

No, he was so close to freedom. Could smell the green grass and the road dust and sweet fresh breeze of the countryside. So close to freedom, he had to do something, but he had to be smart. _Pay attention, Dandelion_ , he scolded himself, _think_. At first they had started on the roads, travelling back the way they had come, but soon hard packed road gave way to game trails then unbroken underbrush. So Dandelion could infer they weren’t riding to Oxenfurt; the man was simply fleeing, and if that was the case it meant this was an act of desperation, not a martial contingency plan. And if the soldier was off-script that meant there was an opportunity for mistakes.

“I have powerful friends, you know,” gasped Dandelion, fighting for breath. “You saw them attack the wagons, you know they’ll be coming for you next!” Sweet Melitele, he hoped that was true and that it wasn’t simply a band of raiders that decided to crack open Redanian iron carriages in the hopes of finding a money transport. “Let me go now, and you’ll be much better off! You know who I am! You must, all know my name around here, I’m the famous troubadour Dandelion! You know I run with the great White Wolf, Witcher Geralt of Rivia, most fearsome monster hunter of the Continent, do you really want him breathing down your neck, huh? You’d better—”

“Silence, you,” snapped the man, bringing his riding crop down on Dandelion’s back rather than his foaming horse’s flank.

Dandelion shrieked as it ground into his whip marks. Fighting to catch his breath before it could turn into sobs, Dandelion breathlessly cussed the man out with every creative curse he could think of. When the man snapped the crop down on him again it dissolved into something closer to wails or pleading.

There was no way to keep track of where they were, all Dandelion could see was dirt and grass racing past under the horse’s hooves, until all of a sudden the horse was stumbling and not for the first time over the past countless days Dandelion felt himself flying and, abruptly, slamming against the ground. All air was slammed from his chest and Dandelion was frantic for a moment, afraid something irrepabale had finally given way in his chest and he wouldn’t be able to ever get the air back.

But then he did, somehow his body continued to fight for existence despite all, and he was soon wheezing pitifully, but fully enough to push back the dark edges of his vision once more. With this his good arm, he propped himself up and managed to twist enough to see that they were deep in the woods. No road, the man had clearly just raced into the backcountry to avoid being hunted by whoever had attacked them. Not far from where he lay was the horse, collapsed on the ground, legs askew, blood and foam flecking from its nose and mouth. It’d been ridden to death, poor bastard. He didn’t have time to offer anymore pity than that though, because then the Redanian soldier was pulling himself up from under his horse and grabbing Dandelion roughly by the upper arm, dragging him to his feet and through the trees.

Dandelion’s ankle throbbed with every limping step and he half considered giving in and dropping to the ground instead of hobbling after his captor, but the soldier was dragging him along by his injured shoulder, which already sent waves of fire up and down his arm and back with every jerk. Even considering what it would be like to be dragged across the ground by his arm when he refused to cooperate was nauseating.

“Stop, stop, you’re going to kill me, you’ll tear my arm off,” babbled Dandelion. “What is it you’re hoping for? Accolades for your bravery? From _Menge_? Have you met the man? Let me go, say you lost me when the horse spilled, say I was snatched by marauders, what good is this doing for you? Ouch, damn you!”

At first Dandelion had feared he was going to be marched endlessly through the woods on his bad ankle until he collapsed with bloody lungs like the horse had, but all of a sudden he realized there was a squat little house ahead of them. A witch-hunter safe house?

Apparently not, because when the soldier forced his way in there was immediate commotion from the occupants, a pair of halflings and an outraged dwarf. Dandelion was tossed unceremoniously to the ground, and the man pulled a sword. The cottagers didn’t linger, but they cursed impressively as they were forced out of their own home at sword point. Dandelion tried to catch their eyes, to plead for their help, but he saw only their backs as they marched out. They barely glanced at him.

The Redanian sergeant was panting, looking frenzied. Scared, as he shut the door and started dragging furniture in front of it. Perhaps Dandelion’s words were leaving their impression on the man, and he was thinking about who or what might be tailing him. As Dandelion considered this possibility, the soldier turned on him. He yanked over one of the squat chairs, and dragged Dandelion up and into it, wasting no time in binding Dandelion’s poor, scabbed wrists once more behind him.

“Just lovely,” Dandelion grumbled. “I was beginning to miss this.” At least this was feeling more like something he could recognize again. A desperate chase through a forest to be holed up in a quaint cottage? Never mind ballads, this sounded like something that could have been lifted from his own life, odd as it was. Away from the sunless stone pit of the Isle prison, away from the barely-human jailors and the chains and whips and brands, Dandelion felt like he could almost find his footing again. Or at least his tongue.

“Shut up,” the soldier growled, striking Dandelion across the face, “just shut up!”

As Dandelion blinked away the stars, the soldier paced, fingered at the Redanian crest on his uniform. A nervous tic, a tell. Dandelion promised as soon as he was no longer tied up he’d go down on his knees for Melitele in thanks. He was captured by a human, with human feelings, rather than a man burned hollow with religious fire or stony-faced monsters. It was like playing gwent again, if gwent left you starved and sore and dizzy. Examing the crest, he could tell by the bars held in the Redanian eagle’s talons that this man was a sergeant. And if he was playing with the insignia, Dandelion was willing to hazard that it was something that was weighing on him, for better or worse. He was either cursing his position in the army and wanted out, or treasured it and was fretting about how all this would affect his future.

“So this is what a sergeant of the great Redanian army has stooped to,” said Dandelion.

The soldier stiffened, bristled. Dandelion could have preened; the man may as well have thrown his whole hand down on the table for Dandelion to peruse. Now, if he played this very carefully he might yet walk away from this.

Or hobble away as it were.

“I’ve heard of how hard it can be for one to distinguish themselves among the ranks,” he said, forcing himself to slow his voice, sink into the rich, soothing tenor despite the fact that the adrenaline was making him want to rush. “It’s a shameful thing, that a true, proud Redanian can’t truly shine for his merits.”

The man didn’t seem to know what to make of this sympathy from his captive, so he nodded vaguely. “Yeah,” he muttered, “yeah.”

“But a man like you! You kept your head when everyone else lost theirs amidst that bandit attack! You secured the prisoner! Guaranteed the mission would be successful! A sensible man like you, you’re a boon to your squad, I can see that! A nuisance for me, of course, I can see you aren’t the sort to drop your guard or I’d be free already.”

“Someone needs to do his ploughing job,” grumbled the soldier. He was still fiddling with his insignia, twitching from foot to foot. Jumpy, scared. Guilty?

“Though I meant what I said,” continued Dandelion, applying the pressure as delicate as he could. If he could just get this goon to loosen his bindings… he wasn’t sure what he would do next, but at least he’d have his hands free. “You must know Menge’s type? He’s an unreasonable madman! Sees blasphemy against the Flame anywhere, and good men nowhere! You bring me back like a good soldier and you won’t see so much as an extra sausage in your rations! A man like you though… you should be able to buy a commission, surely…”

There it was. The man’s eyes lit up like a hungry dog’s. That’s what he wanted, a way to be promoted to officer.

“No money to pay for one, can’t do shit if you ain’t a noble,” grumbled the man, and his gaze said it all. Dandelion was his ticket to captaincy, or so he hoped, though Dandelion wasn’t convinced the man actually had a real _plan_ so much as he’d seen an opportunity. Fortunately, though, Dandelion did.

“It’s a crime,” agreed Dandelion sombrely. “Listen… it pains me to say it, but I can see when I’m beaten. But you seem a good sort, perhaps we can make this work out best for both of us. What if I told you I could ensure you’re able to buy your commission? What would it be, surely no more than a hundred ingots?”

Much less, in fact, but the man’s eyes were now fixed to him.

“And where would a poetaster like you get something like that?” demanded the man. “I don’t want to hear any lies or begging, bard, I’m not a fool!”

“Would I be offering such a thing if I thought you were?” cried Dandelion. 

He would be writing a song about this man, the type of stupid comedy you sang half drunk, and he would revel in it. ‘The Proud Redanian Eagle Played By A Songbird’ or something to that sense.

“If I thought you a fool, I’d be trying to escape, not offering up a fortune! Besides, a renowned bard I may be, but I am _also_ Viscount of Lettenhove!” The soldier was a proper Redanian and recognized the name of the viscountcy even if he boggled at the thought of Dandelion being tied to it. Dandelion pressed on. “Bring me to my estate, and my people will pay you that hundred gold ingots to assure you commission. You’ll have what you deserve, and you have my word that I will go with you willingly, and once I’m there, I’ll leave the kingdom. You’ll not see me again, nor will anyone need to know how I escaped. They’ll have the sense to assume I escaped during the attack, and you, good lad that you are, can claim you chased me down until the tracks went cold. Surely that’s better than hiding like rabbits in some halfling’s hovel.”

The man stared and Dandelion, thinking hard. Clearly a laborious task. Dandelion practically held his breath. If this didn’t work, the man could very well behead him here and now for speaking treason, it all depended on if greed outweighed patriotism.

In Dandelion’s experience, it did so nine of ten times, and he was not disappointed when the man said, “And how can I be sure you won’t try anything?”

“I’ll go with you. Not like I really have a choice now, do I?” The continuous flattery was like smoke to bees, and just as substantial. The man, though, was finally beginning to ease.

“And there’ll be no trickery along the way? I could wring your neck like a fat hen’s you realize…” the soldier pressed.

“Yes, but I also realize you won’t. My corpse is worth nothing to you, whereas alive… Like I said, a hundred gold ingots. One hundred gold ingots! No more, no less, or I’m not Julian Alred Pankratz, Viscount de Lettenhove!”

The soldier shifted his weight again, his eyes going back to searching the cottage, like he expected his commander to drop from the rafters and catch him. “Viscount? Come on, everybody calls you Dandelion…”

Damn, Dandelion was so close to his freedom he could practically taste it. But he reminded himself of that long ago catfish hunt, and how his desire for supper had lost him and his friend not only the fish, but had also laid a fucking djnn curse on him. No, he had to go slowly. Although if Yennefer wanted to appear from nowhere to save him like she had then, well, he wouldn’t complain. At least not much. Might even kiss the witch if it wouldn’t guarantee him being turned into a toad or something.

No, focus. No Yennefer right now, no sorceress teleporting in to save his sorry arse. Just his words. Focus, focus past the heat and the dizziness, make the words flow.

He took a breath and continued his slow reel. “That my friend is what we call an assumed identity. Can’t expect me to reveal my full title to every goitered idiot I run across. Now, if you could just unbind me…”

His patience paid off. Slowly the man approached him, reaching back to finger the ties. It jarred his shoulder but Dandelion grit his teeth and counted silently in his head, trying to slow his heart and ease his impatience.

“You made a wise choice,” Dandelion said. “Very wise. Might not be more than a sergeant today, but tomorrow…”

“Quiet! I thought I heard something…”

The man’s hands left the ties, and Dandelion’s heart dropped into his stomach.

“What?” he cried. Curse the man’s paranoia! But the soldier was turning around with some dirty cloth he’d grabbed off the halflings’ table, and— “ _No, no, no!_ You see, me and gags, we don’t—”

It was no good, the foul thing was shoved into Dandelion’s mouth, and just like that his words, his one tool, were stripped from him. He screamed uselessly against the gag, swearing he could already feel the chill of the dungeon stone against his back once more, but the man was ignoring him, instead circling for the noise, sword drawn. Dandelion was half resigned to the man getting cold feet and dragging him back to the Guard, when a side door was thrown open and Dandelion’s heart nearly stopped with sheer disbelief.

In stormed Geralt, with the fury of a demon hoard unleashed.

“Die, dammit!” cried the soldier.

That was all he got to say, before he was nothing more than cooling meat beneath Geralt’s steel sword. It was possibly the most beautiful thing Dandelion had ever seen. It was truly ballad-worthy material, Geralt was larger than life like this, a deus ex machina materialized just for him, and Dandelion wasn’t sure he’d ever been so happy to see his friend. 

Geralt’s next move brought him behind Dandelion, and with one slice the bindings were released and Dandelion was able to curl in on himself, massaging his poor wrists, though every new move made his shoulder and back ache freshly. He couldn’t even think far enough ahead to consider making his abused joints lift high enough to remove the gag, but he didn’t need to, because Geralt was already pulling it out.

Dandelion felt giddy. Like he couldn’t believe this was happening. This morning he was in a pitch black carriage, sure he would be dead by sundown, and now here he was in a forest cottage with his dearest friend. The relief was dizzying; he wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it all. “Geralt!” he cried, the first words in his head tumbling out. “Must you ruin everything? I had him just where I wanted him!”

Geralt stared. And then snorted, kneeling down in front of Dandelion.

Dandelion took one look at the man’s familiar, scarred face, and then did dissolve into laughter, mostly because he had the strange, twisting feeling that if he didn’t do that then he might start crying. Letting his head fall against the witcher’s shoulder, he said, “It is good to see you, friend. I have no idea what brought you here of all places, but Melitele’s tits, am I glad it did.”

Geralt’s hand brushed Dandelion’s cheek, which he only then realized was probably a rainbow of colours. Geralt said, “We’ll discuss that later. For now, I’m glad to have you alive and whole.”

“Mostly whole,” muttered Dandelion.

He could feel Geralt’s hands still against his cheek, was close enough that he could feel Geralt’s intake of breath, not just hear it. He had no doubt that Geralt could smell exactly what a mess Dandelion was. He doubted a single, frigid bath had rid him of it, especially not with the state of his back. Geralt was scenting it all now.

“Are you hurt? Tell me, Dandelion,” commanded Geralt.

“Oh you know how it is,” said Dandelion. His tone started light but slid towards bitter. “I was with them for some time, it was only right that I pay my room and board. An oren of flesh here, a pint of blood there.”

“Dandelion,” said Geralt seriously. “Will you be alright? How badly are you hurt?”

“I…” said Dandelion, his voice then stuttering, catching in his throat. “I... don't know. I don't even know. I have never hurt so much, Geralt, never in my life. But… but…”

How badly was he hurt? He had been sure he was going to die. Positive. He still could hardly reconcile the pain he felt with the fact that, now that Geralt was here, survival seemed inevitable. And yet, it seemed pitiable now, facing the witcher. He had seen some of the bloodiest results of the man’s hunts. Had seen Geralt left gored and nearly incoherent with pain, able to do nothing but watch as the witcher knocked back elixirs and breathed through it. He had seen Geralt’s bones at wrong angles, had seen him with poison in his veins and swords slicing through his flesh. What was a few cuts down his back compared to that? All at once, something that had felt so unmanageable, so overwhelming, so huge and all consuming, felt trifling. A joke. Some scratches down his back. How badly was he hurt? 

He was only aware that he was crying — deep, racking sobs that made his ribs burn — when Geralt placed a warm, gloved hand on the back of Dandelion’s neck and pressed him more firmly against his shoulder. Dandelion took the invitation for what it was and just clung to the witcher and cried until he had nothing left but dry gasps.

“Steady. Stay seated,” said Geralt. “I’m going to let the owners back into their house, then I’ll look you over. Then we’ll decide if you’re fit to travel. Alright?”

Dandelion nodded, and Geralt moved to clear the barricade of furniture away from the door.

The halflings and dwarf tramped in, muttering and ill-tempered, but they softened somewhat at the sight of Dandelion slumped in their chair, tearing streaking his face. Truly, he must be a pathetic sight. Geralt informed them that he and Dandelion would be staying here until Geralt could patch him up, and that the three of them had best get rid of the body.

The dwarf spat on it and suggested they string it up by its lower organ, as a pointed message to other potential home invaders, but Geralt’s frosty remark about ghouls seemed to convince them to bury it properly.

“Alright,” said Geralt, “let’s see.” When Dandelion hesitated, he added, “We have friends waiting for us, Dandelion. They’ll worry if we tarry.”

Dandelion nodded, though he felt a strange twist of shame. Half afraid of what Geralt would say when he saw what it was that had been done to Dandelion, what he was too weak to do anything but accept, what he was too weak not to overcome.

Geralt didn’t need to be asked, he simply came over as soon as Dandelion started to remove his doublet and began to help, taking extra care around Dandelion’s injured shoulder. The chemise was more of a challenge — it had dried in tacky patches to his back and made Dandelion squeak with breathless pain when it was pulled. Geralt had eventually sought out a water jug and began dabbing at the shirt until it had loosened enough to be removed.

“We could cut it off,” he suggested.

“I haven’t exactly brought a change of clothes, Geralt,” said Dandelion. “I’d prefer not to ride in the buck. Not after the last time.”

Geralt snorted, but didn’t argue, simply continued to try to extract Dandelion’s arm from the shirt despite the limited range of movement. In truth, Dandelion was loath to lose the one thing that had made him feel human after so many days beneath the ground. Finally, with hat, doublet, and chemise piled on the table, Geralt was able to inspect Dandelion. Dandelion wasn’t sure what sort of response he was expecting, but Geralt simply considered him silently, making no comment. He knelt forward, and carefully felt along Dandelion’s shoulder and arm, making him gasp and cringe.

“Dislocated, not broken,” said Geralt. “This swollen, it’ll hurt like a bitch to get it back in.”

“Oh good,” said Dandelion weakly. He couldn’t imagine how it could hurt _worse_.

“Lean forward,” said Geralt, moving to his back.

When Dandelion did he practically trembled, especially when Geralt’s cold hand trailed along his back, ghosting just above the skin so as not to anger the injuries.

“Say something!” he cried. “Say something.”

“They branded you,” growled Geralt.

“Melitele’s arse, yes. I don’t even know what it looks like. Will… will it heal?” Geralt hummed, and Dandelion could hear the undercurrent of fury in it. “Geralt?”

“It’s infected,” said Geralt eventually. “Not only that, these other marks too. Not surprised, you can feel the fever. We’ll get it cleaned though, and it will heal. ...It’ll scar though. Burns like this don’t heal clean, and this has been left too long.”

“Goddess forbid, I’ll start to look like you.”

Geralt tutted. “You should be so lucky, bard.”

“An ugly old man, how will I ever convince a woman to come to my bed again!”

“You’re on thin ice, Dandelion.”

“I suppose I can always focus on wooing equally ugly old men,” he mused. Geralt didn’t rise to that bait.

“Let’s work on making sure you have enough blood left in your body before you start redirecting it towards superfluous organs,” said Geralt dryly. “Does anything else hurt? If not, I’ll go get my kit from Roach.”

“Not an inch of me is superfluous!” cried Dandelion, trying to build a proper bluster.

“Only an inch, is it?” said Geralt. “Hm, now I’m understanding the trouble you have with getting women to come to your bed.”

“Ha! You well know that’s untrue and slanderous!”

“Uh huh. Now stop dodging the question, Dandelion. What else hurts?”

Dandelion bowed his head. He was afraid to face this eventuality, this reality. It had been his greatest fear since they had first begun working him over. Since they had let him hang.

“My ankle,” he said. “And.. and my hands. Geralt! They, they hung me up, and bound me, it hurt so fiercely Geralt, my wrists, and I can barely move my arm, and… are they okay? My hands? Geralt, please… please tell me they will be alright.” The _please tell me I will be able to play again_ was left unsaid but heavy in the air.

Geralt sighed and came around once more. First he sat on the floor, and brought Dandelion’s foot into his lap. Dandelion had never been given his boots back, so it made inspecting the foot easy enough, though Dandelion still had to grip reflexively at the edges of the chair, biting off a cry. Geralt didn’t even bother prodding at it further.

“Fractured,” he said. “Lateral malleolus. Not serious. We’ll splint it.”

Placing the foot gently back against the floor he then got back on his knees and let Dandelion place one hand at a time in his. Geralt’s hands, now that his gloves were off, were a reassuring weight. Heavy, calloused, and a shape that every inch of Dandelion’s body knew well. Going about his job with sombre seriousness, Geralt carefully kneaded at every little bone and joint in Dandelion’s hands. He commanded Dandelion to flex his fingers, and then hold them up one at a time. Dandelion was concerned enough he didn’t even give in to making the easy joke when raising his middle fingers.

“Hold my hands and grip them as tightly as you can,” said Geralt.

Dandelion did so and squeezed. And then kept squeezing, reluctant to let go. A part of this still felt like a fever dream. Geralt didn’t remark on it as Dandelion continued to hold his hands, nor did he try to extract his. Instead he just said, “Nothing’s broken or dislocated. The pain you’re feeling is just from the lesions on your wrists and from the shoulder. There’s been some strain, but your fingers seem to be moving alright. You should be just fine, we’ll have you back on your lute before you knew to miss it.”

“Too late for that. Those Temple Guards are animals, Geralt, they wouldn’t know the first thing about tasteful art.”

“Mmhm. I imagine that was much more painful than the lashes. I’m going to put your shoulder back into place and disinfect your back, then we’ll ride. Priscilla and Zoltan should be waiting for us back at the ambush. We’ll go over the rest of you at the Rosemary.”

Dandelion nodded, relieved to know exactly what his fate would be, and that he could safely leave it in his friend’s hands to take care of.

“Priscilla’s here too? Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. You can thank her for ensuring we found you. It’s a shame you missed the play she wrote for your sake.”

“She wrote me a play?” cried Dandelion. “Whatever for?”

“To find Dudu. Even got me a starring role. Brace yourself, this will hurt.”

Dandelion flinched as Geralt grabbed his arm, but kept talking, frantic to distract himself. “ _You_. Acted? On a stage? In front of actual people?”

“A one time performance. Let it be a testament to how much I like your scrawny arse, Dandelion.”

“It can’t be one time if I missed it! I demand a repea- _AAH!_ ”

Bracing himself against Dandelion, Geralt had pulled Dandelion’s arm out straight and up in a motion smooth and practiced, making the joint slip back into the socket with a grating pop. Effective it may have been, but it still made Dandelion cry out.

“Breathe through that,” Geralt commanded. “I’m going to get my kit. We’ll discuss the merits of theatre once we have you on your feet again. Or at least on Roach’s, until we can splint yours.”

Dandelion hissed, but the pain was already becoming more manageable. At least his shoulder no longer felt like it was tearing itself to pieces every time he moved it. It helped knowing that there was, finally, an end in sight, and promised kindness in the meanwhile. Even if that kindness hurt like sin.

The halflings and dwarf were back by the point that Geralt had Dandelion sitting sideways on the chair, gripping his knees in an attempt not to pass out while Geralt doused his back with something that made the wounds burn like molten iron had been poured into it. Their hosts eyed them, clearly not enjoying the continued presence of their unwanted houseguests, even if the witcher had helped rid them of the previous one. But at least they offered them some of the soup that had been simmering the whole time on their hearth, though Geralt forbade Dandelion from eating it until after he’d finished with his back.

“You’ll just throw it up.”

“What else is new?” grumbled Dandelion, his empty stomach cramping with longing, but he saw Geralt’s logic. He tried to distract himself with words then, if he couldn’t do so with food. “Geralt, have you come across Ciri?”

He felt Geralt’s hands stiffen for just a moment in their ministrations. “No. I thought… I thought you would know. I know you tried to help her, even if I’m having trouble understanding why you went to Whoreson Junior of all people…”

“No one else came to mind! Ugh. So you haven’t seen her, I’d thought, since you were here, that must mean…” That he had already found her, instead of taking the time to stop and save his sorry arse when Ciri was still out there being hunted.

“There’s nothing else we can do about it right now. We’ll talk more once we get back to the Rosemary,” said Geralt. His words were pragmatic, but Dandelion could hear the disappointment in them. “ _After_ we call Triss to come have a look at your back. This is about all I can do besides giving you an elixir and that would do more harm than good.”

Dandelion nodded, accepting this as the truth. His back was now bound in strips of linen torn from a bedsheet Geralt had bought off the cottagers for a couple crowns. It was finished off with his once dislocated arm being tied up in a sling that kept it immobile against his chest. Geralt pressed his hand against Dandelion’s forehead once more, humming with disapproval.

“We’ll definitely need Triss… How are you feeling, Dandelion?”

“How do you think, Geralt? Like I was being fondled by virgins in a feathered bed all night.” At the annoyed noise Geralt made he said, “Fine, miserable. I’m exhausted. I _hurt_. Even more now, somehow. And happy I’m alive to hurt, thanks to you. May have my soup now, mother?”

“Eat,” huffed Geralt, swatting at his head. “Arse. Then we leave. Meet up with Zoltan and Priscilla, then go find Dudu and Triss.”

Dandelion obeyed, though he only ended up getting through about half the bowl before he felt too queasy to continue. Afterwards, Dandelion briefly attempted to stand, but pain lanced through his foot and stiffened muscles, and he ended up collapsing again with a groan.

“Alright, Dandelion, I’m going to pick you up. Make sure you put your arms around my neck unless you want me holding your back.”

Dandelion did not want that at all, so when Geralt tucked his arms under Dandelion’s thighs and lifted him so he was held against the witcher’s chest, Dandelion held tight. From over Geralt’s shoulder, he could see the faces of their temporary hosts looking very pleased to see the last of them. Once outside, Dandelion breathed deeply the sweet forest air and felt immediately like he could break into song. He was all the happier to see good, reliable, old Roach cropping grass at the far edge of the homestead, as far from the horse corpse as she could get. She looked up at their approach, her reins dangling loosely — it was clear Geralt must have leapt from her back as soon as he’d gotten to the cottage, not bothering to tie his mare and trusting she wouldn’t stray in his urgency. It made something that had grown very small and sad in his chest during his captivity swell with warmth.

Geralt lifted Dandelion into the saddle first, then swung himself up afterwards, positioning himself in front of Dandelion so the poet could lean his head against Geralt’s back, wrapping his one free arm around the witcher’s waist.

“You’ll be able to keep your seat, Dandelion?” Geralt called back.

“I’ll be fine,” said Dandelion. “I’m just happy to be riding right side up this time. ...Though if you do happen to hear a scream and a thud, do stop and pick me up, won’t you?”

Geralt shook his head, and nudged Roach into a trot. She was a steady mount, and Dandelion soon found himself lulled into a half-sleep against Geralt’s back, even with all his pains. The coolness of the armour helped, so did the soft rumble of Geralt’s voice when he said something to Roach, about the path and how pleased he was with her for holding up after such a hard ride.

“I am so glad you came for me, my friend,” said Dandelion one last time, because he really needed Geralt to understand this, understand his importance throughout all of this even if he couldn’t quite explain how the witcher had come for him even when he was still in that cell and what that had meant for him too.

“Always,” promised Geralt. “Whatever mess you get yourself into, I’ll come for you Dandelion. But perhaps cut us both a break for a while after this, hm?”

“Don’t think I’ll have a choice,” said Dandelion with a sigh. “But alright, I’ll do my best.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's strange writing for a fandom with so many different off-shoots of source material. Hopefully that was enjoyable to everyone because it was pretty fun to write!
> 
> The last part of the dialogue between Dandelion and the Redanian soldier before Geralt ends him was copied from the dialogue you hear in game. Normally I would have skimmed over the horse ride and such a bit more, but since there's probably a number of people who haven't played the game I figured if I wasn't fairly explicit about what was happening it might be too easy to get lost... as it is I hope I didn't lose anyone too badly.


End file.
